Category: Politics

Beginning with campus leadership as a student at Calvin College, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been involved in politics. With six years of service as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, DeVos is a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan who has invested her life in seeking solutions to deep social problems impacting children and families, and first and foremost: education and educational choice.

DeVos’ interest in educational choice began when she and her husband Dick DeVos, a former Michigan gubernatorial candidate and State Board of Education member, visited The Potter’s House Christian school in Grand Rapids, Mich. The Potter’s House has served low-income families and children with needs for over three decades, and DeVos has also mentored a student there for a number of years.

Repeated visits to the Potter’s House showed that the school was providing an excellent education for students, but lower-income parents were making huge sacrifices to pay tuition to the privately-funded Christian school. In addition to offering scholarships to individual students, Dick and Betsy DeVos began providing additional financial support to the school, a commitment that continues.

Providing scholarships on an individual basis, Betsy DeVos soon realized, wouldn’t make the fundamental change necessary to offer every parent the chance to send their children to the school of their choice. The next step was advocating in Michigan for school choice initiatives, including tax-credit scholarships and vouchers. These state-wide initiatives evolved into national efforts through political and charitable foundations, including the American Federation for Children and the Alliance for School Choice. These initiatives had success in building greater school choice, especially in Florida, where the state’s tax-credit scholarship program has led to more than 50,000 students attending a school chosen by their families.

While some news reports have described Betsy DeVos as “unprepared” for her position as U.S. Secretary of Education, a recent visit to Saint Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, Florida with President Donald Trump showed her experience with private schools beginning with her involvement with the Potter’s House School in Grand Rapids more than two decades ago. Potter’s House school superintendent John Booy, who has worked with Dick and Betsy DeVos for over 30 years, says that Betsy DeVos is a consensus builder who not only helped their local church through turbulent times as a congregation leader, she also has a knack for listening to all perspectives.

Those who have worked with DeVos for over 30 years like John Booy say she is a “regular person” who is just like everyone else, even though she and her husband Dick both come from wealthy families. As of January, 2017, the couple announced their charitable donations had totaled nearly $139 million. Combined with Dick’s father, Amway founder Rich DeVos, in 2015 alone, the entire family gave away more than $104 million, ranking the family as 24th most-generous on Forbes’ magazine’s most recent top charitable donor list. Learn more: http://www.betsydevos.com/policy-involvement/

End Citizens United is a grassroots political action committee that has been uniquely focused on the issue of dark money in the world of American politics. Dark money, or big money as some politicians refer to it as, is one of the greatest existential threats that our democracy faces to this day. Dark money is when a special interest comes to Washington D.C. and puts money into the pockets of politicians in order to ensure their vote or support on a potential issue. The surge in dark money can be traced back to the 2010 Supreme Court decision regarding the conservative group, Citizens United.

End Citizens United was created in response to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling. End Citizens United, as their name implies, is focused on overturning the Citizens United decision by way of an eventual constitutional amendment. However, this is hard to do and there have been few occasions that politicians on both sides of the political aisle have been willing to work together. In fact, the last bipartisan constitutional amendment was in 1992. Still, End Citizens United is looking optimistic toward the future. The founder of the PAC is Tiffany Muller and she has been almost glowing with excitement over the past several months. The reason? People are motivated.

The election of Donald J. Trump, reality TV star and millionaire heir, was the slap in the face that many people needed to get out of their political apathy. In the first quarter of 2017, Donald Trump’s first three months as President, End Citizens United saw nearly $4 million in donations come flowing in. There were over 100,000 donors and nearly half of them were giving for the first time. While this is a huge number, there is still a long way to go. End Citizens United is looking to raise nearly $35 million by the time the 2018 Congressional Elections come around.

In order to provoke great change in Washington D.C. you need the support of both the people and some of the top legislators in the country. End Citizens United is very particular about who they choose to endorse. They are only looking for politicians who are willing to make campaign finance reform a key part of their legislative process. So, when End Citizens United endorses somebody you know they did as much homework as possible.

End Citizens United recently acme out to endorse Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. Senator Heinrich is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating the Russia collusion scandal with President Trump. Senator Heinrich is also a huge opponent to the Citizens United decision. End Citizens United endorsing Senator Heinrich will give him nearly 360,000 national donors as well as 30,000 local members in New Mexico to help with his campaign.